Python: Read information from .yaml

Question

I set up a .yaml file that contains meta data for my measurement points. In this .yaml file I used nested lists and dictionaries that contain the informations, e.g.:

stations:
  - XXXX:
      statnr: 11111
      name: NAME
      name_csv: CSV
      name_snowpack: NAME_SHORT
      lat: 11.11111
      lon: 11.22222
      alt: 1111
      type: TYPE
      operator: OPERATOR
      param: 
        - x1
        - x2
        - x3
        - x4
        - x5
  - YYYY:
      statnr: 22222
      name: NAME2
      name_csv: CSV2
      name_snowpack: NAME_SHORT2
      lat: 22.22222
      lon: 22.33333
      alt: 2222
      type: TYPE2
      operator: OPERATOR2
      param: 
        - y1
        - y2
        - y3
        - y4
        - y5

Next I tried to read specific entries from that file.

import yaml
with open('./config/stations.yaml','r') as file:
    meta = yaml.load(file)
    stations = meta['stations'] 
    print(stations[0])

This works and prints out all information about list entry 'XXXX' but if I want to only retrieve the information about the operator like I would do with a python dictionary:

print(stations[0]['operator'])

I get a: KeyError:'operator'.

So how can I address this entry or maybe entries even one level below that? Thanks for helping!

Answer 1

Found the answer to the question myself. Obviously didn't try that thoroughly enough before..

Instead of having a list of stations in my stations.yaml like above:

stations: 
  - XXXX:
     statnr:1111
     ....
  - YYYY:
     statnr:2222
     ....

I use another dictionary:

stations: 
  XXXX:
    statnr:1111
    param:
      -x1
      -x2
    ....
  YYYY:
    statnr:2222
    param:
      -x1
      -x2
    ....

In this way I can use:

import yaml

with open('./config/stations.yaml','r') as file:
    meta = yaml.load(file)
    stations = meta['stations'] 
    txt = stations['XXXX']['param'][0]   
    print(txt) 

and get the result

x1

which is exactly what I was looking for.